Cerebrospinal fluid from L-dopa-treated Parkinson's disease patients is dystrophic for various neural cell types ex vivo: effects of astroglia.

Cerebrospinal fluid from L-dopa-treated Parkinson's disease patients and subjects without neurodegenerative diseases (controls) was explored in its trophic properties as culture medium on a variety of cells from neural origin. Primary cultures of regional brain dissociates from rat and Cebus apella monkey fetuses, immature rat adrenal chromaffin cells, phaeochromocytoma (PC12), and neuroblastoma (NB69) cell lines as well as subcultured fetal rat astroglia were used as target cells for 24- to 48-h culture periods. Most cerebrospinal fluid samples from L-dopa-treated patients had a general dystrophic effect. This phenomenon was more apparent on striatum and ventral mesencephalon than on cerebral cortex cell dissociates. The deleterious effect of these samples was abolished by previous exposure to fetal astroglial cells. Neuroblastoma cells showed no differential response when exposed to samples from control and L-dopa-treated patients. Phaeochromocytoma cells did not grow processes under any of the samples assayed in the time interval explored, but neither showed evidence of dystrophy. The relevance of these findings to the transplantation of different cell types as one of the possible therapies for Parkinson's disease is discussed. The suggestion is made that CSF testing prior to transplantation may aid in anticipating its possible outcome. Cotransplantation of neuronal cells with subcultured astroglia may foster survival and growth of the former cells.